Please Call Me inventor rubbishes order forcing him to pay Vodacom's legal fees

Decision will stop the poor from taking on giants

- By Mpho Koka

Please Call Me inventor Nkosana Makate says he is expected to pay to his lawyers 20 percent of the money he is going to get from Vodacom and that the Constitutional Court's cost order against him is "extraordinary," "rubbish" and "nonsense", and will have a "chilling" effect on anyone fighting corporate giants like Vodacom.

Makate said the order of the apex court states that he must pay Vodacom's legal costs, including those of its three legal counsels, further ballooning his legal bill.

Makate was speaking to Sunday World this week in reaction to the Constitutional Court judgment on Thursday that the case between him and Vodacom be sent back to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) to be heard afresh by a new panel of judges.

The highest court in the land set aside the SCA's February 2024 judgment that ordered Vodacom to pay Makate an amount of between 5% and 7.5% of the total revenue made through the Please Call Me service for more than 18 years.

This would have amounted to a settlement of between R9-billion to R63-billion.

Makate said he did not understand why he had to be punished for the SCA "botching the case".

Regarding the legal costs order against him, Makate said “it was extraordinary for the Constitutional Court to reach a decision like that”.

“The Constitutional Court decision blamed the SCA judges for botching the case.